Almost Perfect
by Hugsiez
Summary: She thought that everything was perfect, but it was all taken away unexpectedly. Could be Luby, could be Lusan, (Lubsan! ;) ), could be Luka?. Please R&R!


**AN- **^_^;; Angsty fic, just so you know. And it's not a Luby and it's not a Lusan; it could go either way or neither way. It was intended to be a Lubsan for the girls over at F4F ( you know who you are ;) ) Anyway, hope you like it! Please R&R  
  
**Italics are memories/flashbacks  
  
Disclaimer: **All usual disclaimers apply. I don't own Luka, nor anyone else, so... ::Sigh:: Sad, I know...  
  
----  
  
It feels like it was just yesterday that he held me in his arms. Like if it was just yesterday when we watched the sun set while we were in our balcony; me sitting on his lap with my arms around his neck and him with his arms protectively around my waist. We had had our whole future ahead of us, and we had been in charge: we had been planning it out as best as we could. We had been in love. We had been happy.  
  
It feels like it was just yesterday. . .  
  
_Even if the evening air has turned cold and the small breeze seems to get colder each time it's felt, I barely feel the coldness because I'm in his arms. The glow from the sun as it started to go down is our only light, but we watch as the lights in the city start to come alive. Aside from our blanket that is enwrapping us in its warmth, we have each other. He's holding me… Smiling, I turn to look at him and, when I see his eyes gazing out towards the city, my smile only grows. I had never thought that we were going to end up together. That we would finally be able to be happy, but I'm surely not complaining about it.   
  
Softly caressing his cheek, I smile at him when he turns to look at me and, when he smiles back at me; I softly kiss his lips as he brings me closer to him. When we pull away, he smiles and rests his forehead against mine, both of us smiling. "I love you," he whispers.  
  
"I love you too, Luka." Smiling once more, I kiss him and I feel his hand caressing my cheek as we smile at each other.  
  
Everything is perfect.  
_  
People have been saying to me that they know how I feel. That they know the pain that I am going through and that it will get better, but the only thing that goes through my mind when I hear those words is that they don't know. I want to snap at them and tell them that they have no idea how this pain feels, and that the only one who can make it better is gone; and he is never coming back. He's the only one who could know what I'm going through because he went through it himself, but now I'm the one that is suffering through it.   
  
"I love you, Luka," I hear myself whisper to the cold breeze that seems to caress my cheeks and almost freeze the tears that are falling from my eyes. "I love you. . ."  
  
_Luka had had a shift that had started at noon, which meant that he'd be home at midnight, while I had the morning shift. Usually we would have similar shifts so that we could wait for each other until the shifts ended and we could go home, but tonight he couldn't. I had thought that I could have waited up for him, but when I laid down on the couch and tried to watch TV, I soon fell asleep.  
  
The sound of the door closing, though, wakes me up and I turn towards the door only to smile at him when I see him walking to the couch. "Hey," I say groggily, rubbing my eyes as I sit up. "How was work?"  
  
Smiling, he leans down on the floor after pushing me back down on the couch. As he passes his fingers along my hair, I feel my eyes starting to close again but with a small smile on my face again. "It was ok, but I missed you." I feel his lips on my forehead and I sigh as it's getting harder to stay awake. He knows this so, after taking off his shoes and his coat, he lays down next to me on the couch and we hold each other close.   
  
It felt perfect…_  
  
I never fully imagined how in love I could be with someone, how good it could feel. I had forgotten how it felt. . . Luka helped me remember, though. We helped each other remember and we were finally in love. We were both finally happy.  
  
I don't know how many nights I've stayed up, waiting for him to come through the door and smile at me before going to me and kissing me. I wait to hear him laugh; I wait to see his eyes; I wait to hear his voice. Hear him call my name and tell me that everything is ok, and that all of this is not happening. But I know that that can't happen. . .  
  
I know it won't happen.  
  
He's been gone for two months, and he is never coming back.  
  
_Sighing, I unconsciously tap my finger on the table of the restaurant, looking around for Luka to come in. It's our two-year wedding anniversary and he had made reservations at a fancy restaurant where we would celebrate. He liked to spoil me, he said, after I had told him that a dinner with him at home was enough with me, but he insisted on the restaurant.   
  
He was supposed to meet me here at seven-thirty, though, and glancing towards my clock for the hundredth time, I notice that he's over an hour late. I called the apartment, his cell phone, and even County to see if he was there, but no one knew where he was. He had been in County earlier that I knew, because he had been working until six, but after his shift no one knew where he had gone to.   
  
Sighing almost impatiently now, I lean back on the chair and my eyes shift towards the gift wrapped box on the empty chair. My shift had ended before his had and, even if I told him I needed to go somewhere before meeting him at the restaurant, I never told him where exactly I had gone to. Smiling slightly, I pick up the box and touch it carefully, as if the gift inside it could break by just looking at it. Inside it, there was a pair of white baby pajamas that had little bears sleeping on fluffy clouds. He didn't know, but I had gone up to OB after my shift to confirm the news.   
  
I was pregnant._  
  
A small sob gets caught in my throat and I finally stop walking after what seemed like a lifetime. Tears that seemed to be my daily companion once more start to fall and I close my eyes, wanting to be in his arms again. I want him to wipe these tears away… I want him to hold me and tell me that he's there; that he's not leaving.   
  
That he's always going to stay.  
  
The tombstone in front of me, though, tells me otherwise. He's gone, and he's never going to come back… His birth year is there. This year's engraved there. His name is there as well, but even with all that in front of me, part of me still refuses to believe it.   
  
I close my eyes quickly as the memories from that night fills my mind and the endless tears slip faster from my eyes. That day had started out so well… I had found out that I was finally pregnant. But I would have never been able to guess what happened. I would have never expected to get that phone call.  
  
I would have never expected to lose him that night that was supposed to be one of the happiest ones in our lives.  
  
_Something inside of me told me that something wasn't right. Maybe he had car trouble and was stranded somewhere. Somewhere alone where there were no taxis and no payphones… It was possible, right? Despite the knots that seemed to be building inside of me I refused to believe that anything was wrong. It was impossible. It was almost nine-forty five, though, and there were still no news of him. Nothing… Finally standing, I put on my coat before I pick up the gift box and my purse. Sighing, I start to make my way towards the door and, just as I take a step outside, my cell phone starts ringing. Quickly, I get the cell phone from my purse and, without checking the caller I.D I answer; sure that it was Luka.   
  
It had to be him…  
  
"Luka?"  
  
On the other line, I can hear the uncomfortable silence before Frank. "I- Uh… Dr. Kovac was brought in a few moments ago."  
  
"Wh-" The words get stuck in my throat, choking me. Depriving me of air. No… "Frank, wh- What happened?"  
  
"You should come as fast as you can. It doesn't look good."  
  
As I talk, I get in the taxi that pulled over and I can already hear my voice getting shaky and I can't stop trembling. "I'll be there in a few minutes." I hang up and quickly tell the driver to go to County General as quickly as he could and to hurry. The ride there seems eternal; never ending, but, for once in what seemed like forever, I begin to pray that he's ok. That nothing serious happened to him and that Frank was just exaggerating. That, maybe, it was all just some joke that they were all playing on me. Something, anything, but nothing bad. After what seems like forever, the taxi stops and, without caring, I take out a bill from my purse and hand it to the driver before getting out and rushing towards the ER. "Frank. Frank, where is he?" Without a word, he points to Trauma Room 1 and I rush there but, at the sight through the windows, I stop in my tracks and I hear my purse, my cell phone, and even the gift box fall to the floor.  
  
Elizabeth, Romano, Kerry, and Jing-Mei are working on a body that I refuse to believe it's Luka. Malik, Chuny and Haleh run and rush to follow the orders of the doctors, to get what they need, but the monitor shows that his heart was stopping, despite their efforts. From where I was I could see what was wrong, even if I didn't believe it: He had two gunshot wounds on his chest and his abdomen. There was blood everywhere and, despite all their frantic efforts to save him and stop him from bleeding out, nothing seemed to be working. They couldn't get him stable and he started to slip away.  
  
I try moving, wanting to go in, but I can't move from where I am. It is as if I'm glued onto the ground. As if some unknowable force was holding me back from seeing him; from holding his hand despite the fact that Elizabeth was now shocking his heart to bring him back.  
  
'He can't go,' I think. 'I need him… We need him.'  
_  
Trying to block the memory, I kneel down next to where he's buried and another sob escapes from my throat. I don't want to remember anymore. I don't want to remember how they kept shocking him for an hour before Romano called it. I don't want to remember Frank bringing over that policeman that told me there had been some drive-by shooting at a street where Luka had been driving by and, Luka being the way that he was, he got out of the car and went over to try to help the young man that had gotten shot but, despite what he did, the man died when the shooters went back and shot him again. In the process they had also shot Luka. They had killed my husband because of some stupid fight. They deprived my child of getting to know their father; they deprived my husband of getting to know his daughter or his son.   
  
They deprived him of even knowing that he was going to be a father.  
  
They had taken away the chance that he had always wanted; of being a father again.  
  
It's almost a blur now what happened after the doors of the trauma room opened. Mostly everyone was at the verge of tears-Luka had made a 180 turn from the depressed man that he had once been to the man that Gordana said he once had been, and he had turned into one of the friendliest person at the hospital. When he laughed, others couldn't help but smile or even laugh along with him even if they weren't in on the joke.   
  
He had been happy…  
  
_I walk inside the now empty trauma room and my eyes feel dry now. I watched as they cleaned him up, half listening to everything all the doctors and the policemen said to me. I couldn't register any thought; the only one that seemed to make sense was that Luka was gone. That he was gone and I would never be able to talk to him again.  
  
I would never be able to tell him that he would be a Daddy again.  
  
When I reach the gurney, I take his hand and ignore the shudder that overtakes my body as I feel how cold he is. All I want to do is hold him and kiss his cheek and make him ok; make him warm again and make him open his eyes, but I can't. Kissing the top of his hand, I sit down on a chair next to the gurney and pass my other hand along his hair. He looks so peaceful; so calm now. He looks as if he's sleeping, except now he's never going to wake up. He looks like a sleeping angel, and all I can do is watch him for a short moment before kissing his cheeks and his forehead, tears finally filling my eyes. "I love you, Luka…" I finally manage to whisper in his ear. "We love you…"_  
  
Everything had been taken away so easily even if we had fought so hard to finally be happy. He had gone through so much, and everything was taken away in a blink. I know that he never got to know that he was going to be a father, but I think that he does know now. I think that he knows, somehow… When the time comes, it's going to be hard to tell our son or our daughter why their father is not with them. Why he can't watch them grow; why he could never hold them.   
  
With a shaky sigh as I try to hold back yet another sob, I hold a heart-shaped locket that Luka was going to give to me that night; it had been in his pocket, inside a small box, and with a card saying that he loved me and hoped that I liked the locket. That he had picked it out himself and I could choose the pictures that I wanted to put in it. Looking at the locket, I turn it around and smile very slightly at the engraving that was behind it: an L and a K; the initial of my last name and the initial of his.  
  
Turning back to where he is, I manage to smile very slightly and I talk in a very low voice. "I'm going to take good care of our baby, sweetheart… I know that you're with us. Both of us. Just…always stay with us. I'll take good care of our baby… And he, or she, will always know that you love them, and that you're watching over them. That you love them…" I fix the flowers that I brought for him and try to keep my tears back before standing and starting to walk away. I don't say good-bye because there's no need to; I always come around to see him as much as I can and I always think about him. Time might be the only thing that is going to help me, and our baby's going to be with me after he or she is born, so I know that I won't be alone.  
  
A small smile appears on my face, somehow thinking that Luka's talking to our child, telling them that he loves them. That he's going to take care of them even if he's not there. That he'll be with us all the time; watching us sleep during the night and protecting us during the day. That, since he won't be there physically, he or she will be with me instead of him; to never leave me alone. To always be with me. When it's time for our baby to be born, Luka's going to send me my angel. Our angel. Maybe then things could be perfect again.  
  
The only thing missing so it could be perfect is him.  
  
It'll be almost perfect...  
  



End file.
